These findings are from a special Gallup Daily tracking series
conducted January through June 2011 to thoroughly explore
American workers' engagement levels. Gallup's employee
engagement index is based on worker responses to 12
actionable workplace elements with proven linkages to performance
outcomes, including productivity, customer service, quality,
retention, safety, and profit. More recent research has found
significant linkages between engagement at work and
health and wellbeing outcomes.

Engaged employees are involved in and enthusiastic about their
work. Those who are not engaged may be satisfied but are not
emotionally connected to their workplaces and are less likely to
put in discretionary effort. The actively disengaged are
emotionally disconnected from their work and workplace and
jeopardize their teams' performance.

Engagement Low but Improving

Overall, in the first half of 2011, 30% of U.S. workers employed
full or part time are engaged in their work and workplace, up
slightly from 28% in late 2010. Job creation has also improved
from
+10 at the end of 2010 to +15 in June. Approximately half of
U.S. workers are not engaged, and nearly one in five are actively
disengaged, unchanged from late 2010.

Currently, the American workforce has 1.5 engaged employees for
every actively disengaged employee. Gallup management research
has found the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees
varies greatly across different organizations, from more than
eight engaged employees for every actively disengaged employee in
the most highly motivated organizations to fewer than one engaged
employee for every actively disengaged employee in the least
motivated workforces. Engagement also varies across countries
worldwide.

Implications

Analyzing the special Gallup Daily tracking series data cannot
definitively determine the direction of the causal relationship
between employee engagement and hiring practices. It is possible
that employees are more engaged because of their organization's
success or more disengaged because of their organization's lack
of progress or the fear of layoffs. Recent research, published in
the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science has
studied the causal relationship between engagement conditions and
financial performance, finding employee engagement predicts
financial performance more strongly than financial performance
predicts employee engagement. Leaders can use high employee
engagement to improve employee retention, customer perceptions of
service, and other outcomes that will then lead to better
financial performance.

Overall, these findings provide a strong reminder that the
general hiring patterns nationwide vary widely across employees
working in different workplace environments. Workers in
disengaging workplaces are more than twice as likely to report
their organization is letting people go as are those in engaging
workplaces. And workers in engaging workplaces are more than
twice as likely to report their organization is hiring as are
workers in disengaging workplaces. Job creation may partially be
a result of the general economic climate, but it is also likely a
function of the businesses' own success, driven by their
workplace environment, performance, and strong leadership.

Gallup research has found that how
leaders manage employees can significantly influence
engagement and disengagement in the workplace, which in turn
influences a company's bottom line and workers' health and
wellbeing. This analysis suggests the most progressive
organizations are those that are engaging their employees,
thereby producing more and higher quality work. These same
organizations also appear to be moving the job market in a
positive direction.

Workplaces that disengage employees have lower productivity and
are less likely hiring and more likely laying off workers. For
those who wonder what they can do during a down economy to help
their organization take an active role in improving the job
market, one answer might be for them to engage the people they
work with. Every manager can play a role in engaging workers by
clarifying expectations, getting employees what they need to do
their work, giving workers recognition when they do good work,
encouraging employee development, helping workers connect to the
broader purpose of the organization, and frequently measuring and
discussing progress. The managers and departments within
organizations that do these things are more likely to produce
high-quality work and help their organizations grow and improve
the wellbeing of their workforce.

Gallup's employee engagement index is based on decades of
research studying which workplace elements matter most in driving
performance outcomes across organizations throughout the world.
Gallup researchers identified 12 elements that are summarized
into 12 survey items. A composite of employee responses to the 12
items is used to formulate the engagement index groupings:
engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part
of the Gallup Daily tracking survey Nov. 16-Dec. 15, 2010 and
Jan. 2-June 30, 2011, with random samples of 2,526 (2010) and
4,434 (2011) adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia, selected using
random-digit-dial sampling.

Maximum margin of sampling error ranges for subgroups vary
according to size, ranging from ±1.9 percentage points for 2010
engagement and hiring to ±1.5 percentage points for 2011.